


strongest instincts of my nature

by calamityjohn (sarisa)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cameos by Ayo and Aneka, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Wakanda, and featuring James Buchanan Barnes as the Buckysicle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarisa/pseuds/calamityjohn
Summary: Tony begins to confront a demon from his past and present, with some help from the King of Wakanda.





	strongest instincts of my nature

**Author's Note:**

> This fic reads as gen, although I wrote it from a Stony perspective, so feel free to go with either. Reader’s choice. An attempt to reconcile some of what frustrated me in CACW. 
> 
> Title from a quote by Julia Ward Howe: “God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature.”

Tony doesn’t understand why he’s not angry. After everything that had happened, after the fight in Siberia, it should be anger he’s feeling as he steps into the same room as James Barnes. Granted, James Barnes is currently a popsicle, but that shouldn’t lessen the hatred.

T’Challa trails behind him, staying far enough away to give him some privacy but close enough to converse if Tony wants to. T’Challa’s good people, Tony’s decided over the past few months, working with the King of Wakanda to amend the Accords while both of them pretended that T’Challa wasn’t harboring Rogers and Co. T’Challa didn’t take sides, not once he learned the truth about his father’s death, and… Tony needed that, he thinks. Knowing that someone else was watching over his goddamned ducklings when Tony wasn’t able to do it.

And Steve… Tony’s not ready to talk to Steve. Not yet. He’s not here to talk to Steve, anyway. Technically he’s not actually here at all- his visit’s on the books as Edward Collins. Not that that’ll fool anyone who looks into it for more than three seconds, but they have to keep up appearances at least.

He’s not here for professional reasons, anyway. He’s here for Barnes.

It feels like he should be feeling rage, feeling hatred. But staring at the tube where Barnes is standing, frozen, knowing that the man went into cryo voluntarily so he couldn’t hurt anyone else, even after all the times he must have been forced into it against his will… Tony wonders how much it must have felt like it had when HYDRA froze him, so many times over the years. Wonders about the helplessness it must inspire, not knowing who would have him when he defrosted, where or when he’d wake up, if he ever did.

Tony had never seen the file. It was Wilson who told T’Challa where it was, back home at the base, and T’Challa who passed that onto Tony. He’d felt like a thief, going into Steve’s quarters in the barracks to get it, rustling through the locker under his bed (formerly locked, now locked again) and trying not to look at anything else that was there. (It was, in fact, sitting in the foot locker along with stacks of paper bills, the savings account of a man who lived through the banks crashing in ’29, which made Tony stop and fight off an eye roll that would have been far too fond for his own comfort, even in the privacy of his mind.)

At first Tony had gone through the illicitly recovered file with a specific intent, trying to find mentions of Howard and Maria, anything that would have pointed to the Winter Soldier as their assassin. The search was ridiculous, because he knew it was the truth, had seen it happen on the video with his own two eyes, but he’d searched for evidence in the file anyway, and he’d found zilch. Whatever made Steve suspect beyond his gut, it wasn’t there. Maybe not enough for him to be one hundred percent sure, to have said something to Tony. Tony doesn’t know. Steve had mentioned Zola- maybe it was his and Nat’s tête-à-tête with the surprisingly-not-dead Hydra scientist that made him suspect. Tony doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to obsess. Not more than he already is, anyway.

(Because who is he really kidding? This entire thing is an obsession. No reason to deny it, really. He’s obsessed. He should let it go, should try to move on, but he _can’t_.)

So then he’d gone back through the file and read it again, had FRIDAY run it through a translation since his Russian is limited to the insults and occasional pet names Natasha sometimes throws around and how to order a scotch. He’d proceeded to throw up during that read-through, more than once.

He’d understood, objectively speaking, the kinds of torture that would be required to break a man down into component parts, to destroy the humanity in him completely. To wipe his memory fully enough that he wouldn’t remember the most integral person in his life. Tony’s been tortured. He’s been hurt that way, with the specific purpose of breaking him down, of crushing his will to resist. He’s had that violence brought upon him. For months, he’d understood what it meant to live with that sort of fear, wondering every second if they’re going to come back, if they’re going to do it again. And deep down, in his rage in the months after Siberia, he’d blamed Barnes for breaking. For not being strong enough to save himself, to hold out the way Tony had.

But reading through the bland reports detailing the horrors HYDRA had committed on the other man, Tony could barely begin to comprehend how it would feel to go through all of that and know that no rescue was coming, that no escape was possible. That your friends were going on about their lives, alive and well and going home to their families, all the while thinking you dead- and knowing none would ever think to rescue you, or even to look for you. And then having even those memories taken from you. Becoming a shell that followed orders, killed for those same abusers.

He’d spent a long night with that file. The next day, he’d gone to her office and stared at the red book sitting in his desk drawer, where he’d hidden it when he’d stolen it in Siberia, before Ross and his flunkies had arrived to declare everything classified and attempt to spirit it away in the name of the UN. Ross and Russia are still duking it out, and Tony’s pretty sure the tanks and records are still sitting in a warehouse in Moscow, since Russia won’t let them leave the Motherland. But the red book had sat illicitly in Tony’s desk drawer for months as the renovations on the Avengers facility progressed, while Tony had tried to decide what to do with it, ultimately locking it away so he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore and moving onto other things.

But after he’d been through the file, he couldn’t let it sit any longer. Now here he is, in Wakanda, staring up at Barnes behind the glass.

Tony should hate him. He wonders what it is that keeps him from it, really. Against his will or not, this man murdered Tony’s parents. Tony had watched it on that fucking video, watched the metal hand strangling his mother, and his entire worldview had changed with that revelation. But maybe this is just… understanding a tiny fraction of what Barnes had been through. And the thought that had come to him, the night he’d read through the file, and hasn’t left.

If his mother knew what had happened to this man to create the monster he was, Maria Stark would have forgiven him.

Howard- Tony doesn’t know. Howard knew what he was getting into. He was playing the game, had been for decades. He knew the risks he faced, taking the serum. And Tony’s sure that Hydra using Barnes was personal- of course it was. They didn’t just want Howard dead. They wanted him to die knowing that he’d failed, that his friend was still alive and warped so badly. Tony honestly doesn’t think he knows his father well enough to say whether he would have forgiven Barnes, if he’d somehow survived. But his mom- God.

She would have, despite everything. She wouldn’t have hated Barnes. She would have pointed Tony in the direction of the people who were actually responsible. At Hydra, who were responsible for all of it, in the end. Maria Stark didn’t hold grudges, didn’t blame people where it wasn’t warranted. She believed in forgiveness.

Tony, unable to get his mother’s cry to his father out of her mind, isn’t sure that he can do what she would have wanted him to do. But he’s here, and he doesn’t hate Barnes. He doesn’t know what that means.

Turning away from Barnes, he hands the red book to T’Challa. “I hope it can help him,” he says quietly, surprised to find that he means it.

T’Challa nods, but he doesn’t look down at the book in his hands. His eyes are fixed on Tony’s, as though he’s trying to read her mind. “When I thought this man had murdered my father, I tried to kill him,” he says.

Tony nods. “So did I.” And if it had just been Barnes, if Steve hadn’t gotten in the way, Tony would have succeeded. He turns to look at Barnes’ face through the glass again. “How did you stop yourself from killing Zemo?”

T’Challa’s silent for a long moment. “I did not want my father‘s memory to be defined by the death of another,” he says finally. “He would not want me to become that person.”

Tony stays quiet for a moment as well. “My mom wouldn’t want that, either. I think-“ He hesitates, not one to share something this personal with anyone, but then continues. If anyone understands this feeling, it’s the man standing next to him. “I think she would have forgiven him, if she could. Dad- I don’t know. I couldn’t say. But Mom… she was a good person.”

“So are you.” Tony turns to face T’Challa, who’s watching him with a sad, understanding expression. Tony doesn’t imagine that T’Challa, like him, has many chances to show his grief. When the world’s watching expectantly, you have to be unaffected. “You are allowed to forgive him. It is not wrong.”

“I haven’t forgiven anything,” Tony says sharply. “He murdered my mom. His hands did it, even if it was Hydra. I don’t see you forgiving Zemo.”

“No,” T’Challa agrees, turning away. He glances back over his shoulder at Tony, and Tony follows with a look back over his shoulder at Barnes. “But Zemo was in full command of his actions and shows no remorse for the lives he took, the pain he inflicted to ease his own. If he had to use another innocent’s death to further his ends, he would do so again.”

“And Barnes wouldn’t,” Tony says. T’Challa shakes his head.

“I don’t know him well enough to say,” he says honestly, holding the door for Tony with an effortlessly graceful movement, the Black Panther peeking through the guise of a politician. “I am not trying to convince you one way or the other. But with what you’ve brought to help him, you may be able to ask him yourself. Perhaps you’ll find the answers you seek.”

Tony doesn’t disagree, walking quietly back down the hallway, followed at a discreet distance by two Dora Milaje he thinks he remembers as Ayo and Aneka. T’Challa doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of conversation, and he seems faintly amused when Tony holds the next door open for him, the humid heat of the jungle hitting them both like a wall when they step back outside onto the helicopter pad.

“Are you sure you won’t stay longer?” T’Challa offers. “I think our mutual friends would be glad to see you.”

“Nah,” Tony says quietly, almost inaudible over the sound of the helicopter’s blades starting up. “Not this time.” Not with this on his mind. Maybe he’ll be ready to face them, face Steve, next time, but not today. “But tell Wilson thanks for me.”

“I will,” T’Challa says, offering his hand.

Tony takes it, shaking firmly, and then on impulse, reaches up to squeeze the other man’s shoulder. He’s not sure why he does it, because he’s very much not a touchy feely sort of person, and T’Challa stiffens under his hand for a moment before he relaxes. As he does, the two Dora Milaje behind him also relax, but their eyes are still fixed on Tony, which he notices a moment too late, blinking at them over T’Challa’s shoulder. Awkward now, Tony releases him and steps back, looking out at the horizon rather than meeting the other man’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he says. “For your hospitality and… for everything else.”

When he glances back over at T’Challa, he’s full-on smiling at Tony now, and Tony has to stare for a moment, because his smile is like the goddamned sun. “You’re very welcome, Tony Stark.”

Tony clears his throat again and starts for the copter, although he turns back a moment later, calling back, “He’s still missing the left arm?” He knows it was off, sliced it off himself, but it could have been fixed. He couldn’t tell from outside the tank.

T’Challa nods. “We removed what was left,” he calls back. Tony nods, lifting a hand in farewell. He turns and climbs into the copter, and the door slides shut behind him as FRIDAY lifts off, the ground and the trees and the palace falling away beneath them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading ^_^


End file.
